February 28, 2015

Hillary

The next Democrat prez nominee.  The best of the lot.  The standard-bearer.  A pillar of virtue.  A tower of ethics and sound judgment.  Yep.  I can *so* see her as president.  That is a face filled with lots of anger.


Team Obama pays $3 Billion to insurance companies without congressional appropriation, claims it doesn't need authorization

The avalanche of illegal and unconstitutional acts by the emperor and his supporters continues. 

The latest disclosed outrage involves some $3 Billion in payments made by Treasury to insurance companies, although congress had not appropriated any money for that purpose.

The law called Obamacare--rammed through congress in the dead of night back when both houses were Dem-controlled--forced insurers to subsidize out-of-pocket costs for low income individuals, thus capping the health care costs to those policy holders.   

In exchange for capping these charges, the federal government would compensate insurers so they didn't lose money.  Otherwise the big insurance companies would never have signed on to the deal.

Congress never authorized any money to make such payments to insurers in its annual appropriations for 2014, but--prepare to be shocked--the Department of Health and Human Services, with the cooperation of the U.S. Treasury, made them anyway.

On Feb. 3 House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan and Rep. Fred Upton, chairman of  House Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, asking for “a full explanation for, and all documents relating to” the administration’s decision to make the cost-sharing payments without congressional authorization.

Last Wednesday the Treasury Department replied by letter to Ryan, describing the program and revealing that $2.997 billion in such payments had been made in 2014, but didn't say where the money had come from.  The letter also failed to explain who made the decision to make the payments, or under what authority they were made.


Instead of detailing the basis for making the payments without appropriations, the Treasury letter claimed the matter was subject to a lawsuit by the speaker of the House, and referred Ryan to the Department of Justice.

In a brief filed in that lawsuit, DOJ lawyers claimed that the payments did NOT require annual appropriation. “The cost sharing reduction payments are being made as part of a mandatory payment program that Congress has fully appropriated,” the brief read.

But this argument is undercut by the administration’s own previous budget request.  For fiscal year 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (the division of Health and Human Services that implements the program), asked Congress to appropriate $4 billion for the reimbursements that year and another $1.4 billion “advance appropriation” for the first quarter of fiscal year 2015, “to permit CMS to reimburse issuers …”

In making that request CMS was in effect acknowledging that it needed congressional appropriations to make the payments.  But when Congress rejected the request, the administration went ahead and made the payments anyway.

The argument that annual appropriations are required to make payments is also backed up by a report from the Congressional Research Service, which has differentiated between the tax credit subsidies that Obamacare provides to individuals to help them purchase insurance, and the cost-sharing payments to insurers.

 
Over the next decade, reimbursements to insurers are projected by the Congressional Budget Office to cost taxpayers nearly $150 billion.

Oh, these payments are different from the *premium subsidies* paid by the federal government to induce low-income people to "buy" health insurance.  Those payments will cost another $400 billion or so over the next decade.

But...but...but...didn't Obama and Pelosi tell us the Affordable Care Act would provide health insurance to all the poor without costing the taxpayers a dime?  That *everyone* would save money?  If I recall correctly, the emperor's exact words were "An average of $2,500 per family."

Oh, I got it:  That was for people who didn't pay any federal tax.  Cool.

Media: "Economy is booming!" Say what?

I stopped watching network news 20 years ago, after it became clear it was all Democrat propaganda, all the time, but I sometimes listen to national radio news on the drive to work.  And inevitably, the mainstream media says the economy is booming. 

Huuuuge recovery.  Everything absolutely roaring.

Wait...could the media's definition of "booming economy" be...well...nuanced or something?


Remember those "lost" emails about the IRS Lerner scandal? Well, they've been found. And it gets better...

Brazen acts of lawbreaking by the emperor and his administration have become so frequent that we're starting to forget some of the big ones.  But yesterday the nation got a welcome reminder:

A few of you may remember that 4 years ago conservative political groups--like Tea Party organizations--that applied to the IRS for tax-exempt status charged that the IRS had delayed granting this status for up to two years, by demanding that they provide outrageously detailed information on the beliefs of their members, including names and addresses of members and donors.

By contrast, liberal and so-called "progressive" groups were never asked such questions, and were granted tax-exempt status in as little as two months.

This was significant for a number of reasons:  First, the unequal treatment violated the law.  And second, delaying the status of conservative groups almost certainly cost votes in the 2012 presidential election because the groups were organizing to educate voters on issues, and without tax-exempt status they were unable to effectively raise funds to do that, while liberal and Democrat groups--granted the status quickly--had no such trouble.

The big question was, who initiated the policy of having the IRS apply different rules to "political enemies" than to Democrat allies?

The IRS first claimed this was entirely done by "a few rogue employees in the Cincinnati office," but this cover story quickly collapsed as emails and letters proved Washington was in the loop the whole time.

Obviously *someone* made the decision to single out conservative groups for extra questions and delaying tactics, so the question remained:  Who initiated it?  Was the policy initiated by the head of the IRS, or was it ordered by someone in the White House?

To find the answer, Congress subpoenaed the head of the IRS division responsible for awarding tax-exempt status--a woman named Lois Lerner.  Lerner first refused to appear, but under threat of criminal prosecution she showed up long enough to invoke her 5th amendment rights to refuse to testify.  She then retired with full pension.

Unable to compel Lerner to answer questions, congress then demanded that the IRS turn over all Lerner's emails for the time period in question, along with those of her associates in that division.

The IRS told congress it could not comply because Lerner's computer's hard drive had crashed at the end of the period in question, wiping out all its data.  However, records showed that the agency had made no effort at the time to try to recover that data.  This is unusual because in virtually all cases of hard-drive failure other than crushing, most of the data can be recovered fairly easily.

But the *really* bizarre story told by the IRS was that not only had Lerner's drive crashed, but seven of her close associates had ALSO suffered hard-drive crashes within a few weeks of each other!

Tech-savvy Americans recognized that this was strong evidence of a conspiracy, since the odds of that many crashes in the same office within such a short time were astronomical.  But the mainstream liberal, lying media--most of whom wouldn't know a megabyte from a gigabyte--simply winked and shrugged.

Head of IRS, echoed by Mainstream Media: "Nothing to see here, citizen.  Move along."

But someone in the government's tech field noted that critical government agencies like the IRS were required by law to back up all their data on tape regularly.  The tapes were stored off-site specifically to keep data from being lost in the event a fire took out an entire building, for example.  So all the emails, said the tech, should be on the backup tapes.

"Oh no no no," said the head of the IRS.  "The tapes aren't organized for easy searching, and no software exists that would let us find one person's emails out of terabytes of data."

"And besides, there are so many reels of tape that it would take months and millions of dollars to even find the right tape."

Nothing to see here, citizen.  Move along.

And the mainstream media dropped the story.  So most Americans forgot all about it.

Then some government I/T guy said what everyone not on the Democrat plantation knew: "They said the tapes aren't organized for easy searching?  And that no software exists that would let us find one person's emails?  And that they can't find the right tape in any case?  All of that's complete bullshit."

Sure enough, yesterday during a televised congressional hearing of the House Oversight Committee we learned that a new investigator found the Lerner email tapes. 

At the regular storage facility in West Virginia. 

And it took him all of two weeks to find 'em, from a cold start (i.e. not knowing a thing about where to look).

And if that's not damning enough, the investigator was clever enough to ask the managers of the storage facility if anyone at the IRS had asked them to find Lerner’s backup email tapes.  Answer:  No one from the IRS had ever asked the storage facility to look for them.

Treasury deputy inspector general Timothy Camus confirmed to the House Oversight Committee that his office has found more than 30,000 of Lerner’s emails.  Investigators have said there is "potential criminal activity” in the case.

Predictably, Democrat Rep. Carolyn Maloney called the hearing a “waste of time.”

The White House has staunchly refused to cooperate with the IRS investigation, claiming they'd done all they possibly could by directing the IRS to cooperate.  White House counsel W. Neil Eggleston wrote to Rep. Paul Ryan last week,
It is my understanding that in May 2014, Commissioner Koskinen responded to this request by indicating that the IRS would be able to address new topics such as these following its completion of document productions already in progress.  To the extent that the committee continues to have an oversight interest in this matter, I encourage you to continue working with the IRS to address those questions.
Translation:  Congress should stop its investigation and wait for the emperor's hand-picked minons to complete their diligent, oh-so-unbiased and honest investigation.  Which will be finished about a month after next year's presidential election.  Because the emperor has a HUGE interest in ensuring that a) a Democrat wins the presidency, so no one will come after the emperor for criminal wrongdoing; and b) that the Dems re-take as many seats as possible in congress, for the same reason.

Eat shit and die, tyrants.

All of you.

Between this bullshit and Obama's executive order banning 5.56mm ammo, I'm starting to think there's no alternative to a civil war to take this nation back to the Constitution.  Sad and deadly, but seems to be no other way.

Cuz asking the president and all his corrupt Democrat enablers in congress to obey the fucking LAW sure ain't working.

ISIS destroys irreplaceable statues from 5,000-year-old civilization; mainstream American media yawns.

If you're a liberal Democrat, the prospect of ISIS monsters killing unarmed Christian civilians may not upset you.  On the other hand, the notion of ISIS thugs breaking into a museum and smashing hundreds of irreplaceable ancient statues from a long-vanished civilization may rile you up a bit.

Hell, you may even be as outraged as you were when that actress at the Oscars spoke out about unfairness to women or something.

Oh, and after the museum-smashing, the thugs strolled over to Mosul's library and destroyed an estimated 8,000 books--many of which were "registered on a UNESCO rarities list," (for whatever that's worth).  Then, apparently tired from their labors, they blew up the entire building, along with its 112,000 books and manuscripts.

Of course if we merely told you the ISIS thugs destroyed priceless books and antiquities, most liberals would assume it was a lie--propaganda designed to get the U.S. to fight ISIS for the Jews or some such.  In that case here's a video, so you can watch as the berserk killers of ISIS destroy ancient statues in the museum in Mosul.  (For a larger, higher-resolution version click here.)

 
 
The clip above is just part of the vid released by ISIS.  At the beginning of the full video an ISIS representative says the statues were destroyed because they were from a civilization of "polytheists"--which islam equates to devil-worshippers.

Wait...what does this have to do with islam?  Because your emperor has repeatedly assured you that ISIS has nothing whatsoever to do with islam.  So there.  (And if anyone knows what it takes to be Islamic it's Barack Obama.)  I guess that means the confused "militants" shown in the video destroyed the statues for some other reason--ran out of prisoners to behead or burn alive, maybe--and they merely cited "islam" as the reason because they don't really know who they are or what they believe.

Yes, that must be it.  Because the emperor says they have nothing to do with islam.

February 27, 2015

Democrats on the FCC pass 320 pages of SECRET rules. Mainstream media cheers.

Yesterday the three Democrat commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission voted to enact 320 pages of secret new rules to "regulate" (i.e. control) the internet.  Thus the vast new rules--which were kept secret from the American public--were passed by a three-to-two vote.

How is it that in what Obama claimed would be "the most transparent administration in history," his three appointees would pass such a sweeping package of rules without giving the public a chance to see them and comment? 

Why, it's just how dictatorships work.  What's your problem, citizen?  We know what's best, and we'll do what's best, and you need not be concerned.

Why would you object to our passing rules without telling what was in them?  Surely you're not questioning the president's intentions or integrity, are you?  Because that would be very risky.  You might find yourself called in for a tax audit.  Or your health insurance might have problems.

Just shut up and keep paying your taxes.  We'll tell you when you should be concerned.

Hail to the emperor.

February 25, 2015

ISIL won't allow UN to distribute food to refugees unless it's marked "Gift from ISIL"

You won't be surprised to learn that the U.S. has given the U.N. hundreds of millions of dollars to provide food to those displaced by war in the middle-east.  The program feeds roughly two million Syrian refugees living in areas controlled by ISIL.

What may surprise you is that ISIL won't allow this food to be distributed unless every box and sack is marked "gift from ISIL."

The UN has also found that ISIL is selling some of the relief food to raise cash. ISIL has told the UN to shut up and be grateful that ISIL allows any food to be distributed.

So the west is eager to provide food to refugees, while the self-declared Islamic thugs of ISIL are happy for them to starve if the food isn't marked "gift from ISIL."

That perfectly illustrates the huge disadvantage we're operating from when it comes to ISIL:  They're perfectly happy to starve innocent civilians, while we recoil from that prospect.

Interesting.

Emperor pushes for "cooperation" with congress, then vows to veto two key bills

The day after last November's huge election win for Republicans the emperor held a press conference.  Some highlights:
The Emperor:  "I’ve suggested to [congressional Republicans] before that where they think there’s areas of cooperation, I’d like to see us get some things done.  [T]he fact that they now control both chambers of Congress...means that...they have more confidence that they can pass their agenda and get a bill on my desk.  It means that negotiations end up perhaps being a little more real because they have [a] larger majority... in the House and they may be able to get some things through their caucuses that they couldn’t before.
     But the bottom line [is]...my number-one goal is just to deliver as much as I can for the American people in these last two years.  And wherever I see an opportunity, no matter how large or how small, to make it a little...more likely that somebody is finding a good-paying job-- even if I’m not getting a whole loaf, I’m interested in getting whatever legislation we can get passed that adds up to improved prospects and an improved future for the American people."
So, "areas of cooperation."  "Negotiations end up being a little more real."  'If I see an opportunity to make it more likely for someone to find a good-paying job...I'm interested in getting whatever legislation we can get passed...'

Lofty words.  Let's see what he's done to put those words into action.

Congress just passed a bill authorizing the long-blocked (by the previously Dem-controlled senate) Keystone pipeline.  Emperor I-want-jobs-for-Americans immediately vetoed it.

His press secretary has announced that the emperor will veto any bill funding the supposedly oh-so-vital department of homeland security if it contained any provision blocking or restricting the emperor's amnesty plans for five million illegal aliens.

The emperor has directed his Democrat appointees at the Federal Communications Commission to pass the 330-page set of rules charmingly mis-named "net neutrality," without making those rules public or giving the public the opportunity to discuss them and make comments.  This is stunning in its audacity and dictatorial nature:  Historically, agencies proposing new rules or regulations have make those public and offered comment periods of around 3 months before they actually issue new "rules."  But that's not the emperor's style.

After a federal judge issued a decision barring the emperor from proceeding with his illegal amnesty, the emperor has quietly ordered his agents to continue to spend money and sign contracts to get this done.  

Even Nixon obeyed court orders.  But the emperor doesn't.  Because he's always gotten away with it.


The "net neutrality" rules are a classic imperial move to control the internet.  If they can get away with this, the next step is requiring people who post opinions to get a federal license.  Hmm....

February 24, 2015

Liberal rag characterizes amnesty fight as Obama "making deportation less of a priority"

The Left-wing media lies so constantly, so effortlessly, that we barely notice anymore.  It's so common that pointing out an example seems like noting that the sun rose this morning.

I'd like to point out an example anyway, because I hate the Left for their largely-successful efforts to destroy the nation I love.

The Huffington Post is thoroughly leftist--they support anything the emperor wants, no matter if it's unconstitutional.  Yesterday they posted an article on the effort by conservatives in congress to block Obama's unconstitutional amnesty for illegal aliens.  In the article's second sentence the author described the controversy like this:
the GOP has resisted calls to fund the agency, citing objections to Obama's recent actions making the deportation of undocumented immigrants less of a priority.
But the emperor's announced and proposed action doesn't just make deportation "less of a priority."  It will stop deportation of illegals altogether.

Why the misleading phrasing?  After all, all their readers are in favor of the proposed amnesty, and Democrat bigwigs are salivating over the prospect of winning millions of new Democrat votes. 

They can't be candid because they know millions of voters who are relatively neutral about the emperor's policies would view an admission of the truth and get fired up.  And vote.

So they'll carefully mis-characterize...lie...about the true effects, just like they did about the bill that became Obamacare.  Lie to get it safely passed, because they know that once it's passed there's no practical way to undo it.

And they do this every day.

Why would they phrase it in such a misleading and innocuous-sounding  If you're a typical leftist/liberal/low-info voter

February 22, 2015

Harrowing moments in history if Team Obama had been in charge

Harrowing moments in U.S. history if Team Obama had been in charge back then:
“Yesterday, December 7th 1941, a regrettable loss of life and dismantling of obsolete military equipment occurred during a peaceful airshow conducted by the Empire of Japan in the Hawaiian Islands. While the loss of life was regrettable, the United States Government recognizes that the accidental weapons discharges that occurred during this airshow does not indicate an aggressive intent by the Japanese. We will move forward with continued peace with Japan, so help us God!”

“The mass migration that occurred yesterday when large numbers of Koreans from the northern part of that country moved south in search of food and employment does not indicate a desire to commence hostilities. These people from the north are simply willing to do the jobs that the south Koreans are unwilling to do. The United States will not interfere with this internal migration.”

“It was regrettable that on September 11th a number of undocumented airline pilots felt that they had to overcome the widespread prejudice against foreign workers by taking control of a few airliners and attempting to demonstrate their prowess. As a result of this tragedy I have directed the Federal Aviation Administration to perform a thorough review of student pilot training techniques and standards. I also have directed the Department of Labor to investigate airline hiring practices--specifically corporate prejudice against undocumented workers of foreign origin. We must consign this kind of discrimination to the dustbin of history!” 
 See how much better that would have been?

Words can change facts. Uh...maybe. Okay, no--but they can convince voters that things are fine!

Facts are facts.  Does anyone believe that simply speaking words that contradict facts can change those facts?

Western politicians either believe that, or want you to think it's true.

One current example (out of many possible choices!) is the so-called "truce" between Ukraine and Russian-backed "rebels."  The EU and the emperor's team were oh-so-breathless in having negotiated this "truce"--which lasted about ten minutes.  The short life was due to the fact that Putin has absolutely no interest in ending the fight, since it so powerfully serves his own interests, and there is no risk to him in continuing to do so.

Everyone with an IQ above room temp could--and many did--predict the result that indeed happened.  But to hear the EU and Obozo pols squawk, they really really did a great thing.

Except it changed nothing.  Words don’t change facts, even though politicians act as if they do.  The fact is that Putin is winning and is not about to stop punching simply because the Europeans have rung the bell.  He’s going for a knockout, stomping on his foe lying on the canvas.  The political problem for the West is how to keep calling it a truce.

Having lost on the battlefield against the far better-supplied rebels, Ukraine now will appeal for the EU to put diplomatic pressure on Russia to order the rebels to stop firing.  But there is no pressure European leaders can bring to bear on Putin.  Oh wait, they can impose travel bans on a dozen Russian officials.

Laughable.  Ludicrous.  One has a hard time imagining a stronger proof of powerlessness.  And Putin reads this correctly.

According to Reuters the “rebels” have turned back European monitors trying to reach a pocket where 8,000 Ukrainian troops are surrounded.  It's clear why:  The monitors would be able to verify continued Russian supply and rebel firing.

But never fear, citizen:  The right words, spoken by Special Leaders, can change any silly "fact" thingies.

For example, the Obama administration refuses to describe ISIS as being religiously motivated.  Much more soothing to just call them ordinary folks; random guys, whose only reason for turning to terror is because they can't find good union jobs.  Call them anything but who they are.

But in fairness to both the Obama administration and the Franco-Germans, their spokesmen are torturing the language for a reason.  They are doing it to maintain a facade as long as they are able; to avoid the use of terms that, if uttered, might be interpreted as suggesting the need for action.  Certain phrases, once officially spoken, would make even the dumbest voter sit up and realize that something was wrong.

Solution?  Avoid the words and you avoid admitting the actual situation, which then allows them to avoid taking effective action.

Charles Krauthammer summed it up: “Churchill saved England because in 1940 he was able to enlist the English language, and he put it to work on behalf of civilization. What this administration is doing is precisely the opposite."

What Leftists believe

So-called "progressives"--indistinguishable from leftists, socialists and hard-core Democrats--have an interesting set of core beliefs.  Some of these they admit, others they're coy about:

1.  All differences between groups (thus, "inequality")--whether between social groups or nations--occur because one group "exploits"  another.  The idea that differences in results may be due to widepread habits or differences in social ethos or modes of behavior between the groups is totally rejected.  Instead, all differences in results must be due to immoral practices by the more succesful group. Period.

2.  Accordingly, the more a group can show they've been victimized, the more deserving they are of praise and sympathy.

3.  It follows that justice demands that the evil "exploiters" be punished.  It's easy to identify this group:  they're successful--if not economically, then socially:  Most of them have generally functional families and they generally shy away from crime.

4.  In order to redress the inequalities of results, government must redistribute wealth from the successful to the victims.  It would be great if government could also redistribute "privileges" too, but this is rather more difficult.  So government should and must simply take away any privileges its experts believe successful people have.  Making successful people feel guilty about their relative success is another great tactic.

5.  The only legitimate government is one which is committed to imposing this agenda.

Think whatever modest degree of success you've achieved is due almost entirely to diligent study, sound ethics, avoiding drugs and crime, and a strong work ethic--perhaps working long hours or studying hard when others were drinking and partying?

Why, not at all, citizen!  How dare you think such a thing!  Your work ethic and study and avoiding illegal drugs had nothing to do with it!  It was all because you're a member of the privileged class!

As a famous emperor said, "You didn't build that!"

But don't worry: this injustice can be rectified.  We'll just take your tax dollars and give 'em to people with...um...different styles of living.  Cuz, you know, all lifestyles are equally valid.  You can believe us because our experts have degrees from Hahvahd, which means they're really, really smart.

And of course "professions" includes being a professional thief or drug dealer or mugger.  Because those folks work hard too.  And of course the only reason they took up those professions was because no one would give them $50,000-a-year jobs.  It was and is manifestly unfair.  So you need to fix it.

"Manifestly."  Gotta love that word.

Oh, and in case you missed it:  A new poll found that 48 percent of Democrats believed the president could and should do anything he felt was necessary, even if the proposed action was contra to the law.

No word on whether that belief would change if a Republican were president.

"Constitution?  Never heard of it."

Iranian group runs full-page ad in NY Times blasting Netanyahu's coming address to congress

Three days ago the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) ran what it described as a full-page ad in the New York Times, attacking John Boehner and congressional Republicans for inviting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress. 

In a press release NIAC, a mouthpiece for the Iranian regime, described the invitation as "Boehner and Benjamin Netanyahu’s outrageous political stunt that could kill diplomacy with Iran and start a war."

Seriously claiming that a proposed act could "start a war" is the probably the most threatening scare tactic available.  (The word "war" appears four times in the ad.)  But who would start this alleged war?  No faction in the U.S. is pushing for war with Iran, but by contrast, Iran's religious leaders insist that the proposed deal--the details of which are still unknown--is the only alternative to war.  So it would appear that in their ad in the Times the Iranian group is threatening war unless they get their "deal."

Second, why is it an “outrageous political stunt” to hear from an opponent of the proposed nuclear agreement?  Assuming Netanyahu will make the case against the proposed deal, why is Iran so afraid of the prospect that Congress might hear both sides of the argument?  Of course the mullahs probably don't really understand that freedom of speech and open debate of policies are the way things are done in a democracy.

If Obama was about to sign an agreement that would prevent Iran from achieving their long-sought goal of building an atomic bomb, would the Iranians in the U.S. be supporting that, or opposing it?

The answer to that question reveals the hidden truth: the agreement the Obama administration is secretly negotiating is not intended to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.  Rather, it will tacitly accept Iran as a nuclear power. This is why Iran's leaders are so enthusiastic about the agreement–and about Barack Obama–and why Netanyahu opposes it, as do many Republicans.

Democrats, by contrast, believe any agreement negotiated by the emperor will do exactly what the emperor claims, and that regardless of the actual terms, by signing it the Iranians will be agreeing to abandon their effort to build the bomb.

Oh, certainly.  Just like Neville Chamberlain's agreement with Hitler prevented the second world war.

The mullahs’ disingenuous ad is another reminder of how important it is for Americans to hear what Netanyahu has to say, and to understand the real purposes behind the administration’s insane and dangerous eagerness to "sign a deal" with Iran--no matter how bad for the West.

Finally, a thought experiment:  If the Jewish Anti-Defamation League wanted to buy a full-page ad in the Times supporting Boehner's invitation for Netanyahu to address congress, does anyone believe the Times would have agreed to run it?

Full disclosure:  I'm not Jewish, nor is any member of my family.  I'm not being paid by anyone for my writing.  I just hate hypocrisy and liars bent on destroying freedom--which seems to accurately describe the emperor and his henchmen.

Oh, for you leftists who are unalterably convinced this never happened, here's the ad the NY Times ran:


February 21, 2015

Intellectual inconsistency never bothers Leftists

There's this stupid liberal asshole named Paul Krugman, who writes some dumb crap for the NY Times.  Like all good liberals, Krugman strongly agrees with the claim that raising the minimum wage won't reduce employment--whether entry-level or otherwise.

But also like all good liberals, Krugman firmly believes humans are causing significant, harmful global warming, mainly by the emission of CO2 from burning fossil fuels.  Like all good liberals, he's 100 percent behind the emperor's plans to tax the hell out of carbon--whether before or after it's burned.  Because imposing a nice tax on carbon will reduce the amount consumed.

Because, you know, raising the price of something reduces its use.

Uh...except when it comes to...entry-level labor.  In which case raising the price will have zero effect.

Yes, zero! 

And you can believe him because he's a columnist for the NY Times and once won a Nobel prize for economics.  You know, just like Obama's Nobel peace prize.

You know, the one he was nominated for a month before his inauguration.  Because of all the heroic work he did during his long 4-year career in the U.S. senate, fighting for peace.

Wait...what?  You say he never sponsored a single bill during his term in the senate?

Then surely it was for the hundreds of hours he spent trying to negotiate peace in the middle-east in the two months between leaving the senate and being inaugurated as emperor.

What?  You say he didn't do any such thing?  Then why the fuck would any sane person nominate the cunning, lying bastard for the Nobel?

Oh.

February 20, 2015

Irresponsible

This country is being run--into the ground--by a lying, scheming, lawless, Constitution-raping emperor, and his Democrat henchmen.

Of course you think I'm just being hyperbolic. Well, take a look at the vid below of Obozo campaigning for his first imperial election.  He slams G.W. Bush for adding [gasp!!] a staggering $4 trillion to the national debt.  As Obozo put it, "That's irresponsible!"



Hmm...Wonder how the emperor has fared on adding to the national debt--by spending more than the government took in in revenue?  During the emperor's reign the national debt has increased by roughly $8 trillion.

Okay, so is that increase also "irresponsible?"  Why, not at all, citizen!  In fact, Obozo didn't even  bother to push his Democrats in congress--when they controlled both chambers--to pass a budget for three years.  Gosh, that sound *very* responsible.  Not.

In fact, the Dem talking points for the entire period of the emperor's reign has been that any Repub who tried to reduce just the growth of federal spending is cruel and a racist for wanting to make the poor and minorities suffer!

Eh, no matter.  Or as the top Dem candidate said:  "At this point what difference could it possibly make?"

February 16, 2015

Another Obama success: Muzz terrorists behead 21 bound Christian hostages--in LIBYA !

Yesterday a video was released by muslim terrorist barbarians purporting to show the beheading of 21 bound Coptic Christian hostages. 

Read that again and consider it: The bastard muslims have been beheading Christians and others for years, but I don't recall them beheading even three or four at a time.  But now...twenty-one at once.  And the entire thing is on video.

You think this is just more of same, but the new news is that the hostages were beheaded in Libya.  You know, that country that our bastard muslim emperor violated the War Powers act to help overthrow Kadaffi--a guy who'd given up his nuclear program and was *really* no threat to us.

How'd that work out for ya, Barack?  Still pushin' that "Arab spring" bullshit are ya?

You are one fabulous strategic planner, eh?  An absolute wonder of foreign-policy brilliance.  You and Hillary, who pushed the same bullshit.

In a statement released Sunday evening White House press secretary Josh Earnest did not refer to the hostages as Christians, but only as "Egyptian citizens" and "innocents."  Do you suppose the emperor's team simply didn't know they were Coptic Christians?  Yeah, probably not an important factor to Team O.  Plus they wouldn't wanna rile up the bitter clingers in the heartland.

Wonder if the emperor and his team would have been so nonchalant if five or six muslims had been shot by Americans?  Yeah, somehow I'm seeing a *lot* different reaction.

Ya know, if you think about Libya, Iraq, arming rebels in Syria, kissing up to Castro and the totality of Obama's foreign policy it seems to be disaster everywhere you look--unless you consider his goal is really to advance Islam and reduce American power and influence.  In that case it makes *perfect* sense.

If you think the bastards will stop with Libya you're too dumb to live.  But don't worry, citizen:  Your emperor assures you ISIS isn't a real threat.  In fact it's just...how did Barky put it?  Oh yeah:  A "JV team."

That Barky is one smart guy, eh?  Oh, did Boko Haram bring the Christian school girls back yet?

No?  You mean the hashtag campaign didn't work?  That is such a shock!  And it was so brilliant in its strategic deconstruction of the oblate enfarkiousness of the core psychology of the.... Oh, is that bullshit Barkybabble again?  Yeah, well...it's always worked before.

Gotta keep the Base happy, right?  And if you keep givin' the Base and the Lying Media words they can't make sense of, they'll never be able to poke any holes in your strategy.

February 15, 2015

CNN gasbag: "Our rights do NOT come from God

CNN gas-bag Chris Cuomo--son of former NY Democrat governor Mario and brother of current Dem NY gov Andrew--got into a slightly heated on-air debate with Alabama Supreme Court judge Roy Moore over gay marriage.  Cuomo claimed human rights come not from God but from "the collective agreement."

The jurist replied that “Our rights do not come from the Constitution, they come from God,” Raw Story reported.

Cuomo retorted that “Our rights do not come from God.... Our laws come from the collective agreement and compromise."  Yes, we note the possibility that Cuomo confused "rights" with "laws."  Hard to imagine but then it's probably hard to think when you're under the lights.

Of course the beauty of leftists insisting that rights come from "the collective agreement" instead of God is that the former can easily be changed by the elites, whereas the latter is relatively immutable.

Germany cancels huge annual parade after "concrete terror threat"

Further to the surrender of European nations to Muzz terrorism, German just cancelled an annual pre-Lenten parade following a "concrete terror threat."

In past years the parade had drawn around 250,000 people.

When a murderous 4 percent of a country's population can intimidate the rest into shutting down an annual event drawing a quarter of a million people, it's all over.  You've demonstrated that you'll cancel anything they threaten.  At that point everything you propose to do is dependent on their approval.

Game over.

Two unarmed Danish civilians killed by machinegun-toting Muzz in Copenhagen

Yesterday the world saw yet another instance of a Muslim shooting unarmed civilians in cold blood.  This time it happened in lovely, civilized Copenhagen, Denmark.  The murderous fuck walked up to a cafe that was hosting a conference on free speech, attended by cartoonist Lars Vilks, who was the target of insane islamic anger after publishing a cartoon supposedly of mohammed eight years ago.

The gunman fired over 30 rounds from a military machinegun through the doors before going inside and killing a film maker and wounding two police officers.  He then ran outside, carjacked a driver and fled.

His next stop was a Jewish synagogue that was holding a bat mitzvah.  The gunman fatally shot a man guarding the entrance.

The gunman was later fatally shot by police.

Police were *very* tight-lipped about the shooter but later announced that he was on a terrorist watch list.

Let's see if we can possibly crack the mystery:  Nutter targets a conference on free speech--which Muslims are on record as hating, except when they say hateful things about Jews and Americans, in which case they'll scream that you must allow their free speech.  He then goes to a synagogue and shoots a man guarding the door.  Nah, no pattern here.

In looking for information about this attack I also ran across a video of another attack on Vilks in Sweden in 2010.  No fatalities in that one, but you really should watch it because it will show you how insane the Muslims in Sweden are.  Vilks was showing a film lampooning Islam when one of the 40 or so Muslims in the audience screamed "Stop the film!" as other Muslims rushed the dais and began punching Vilks.

Police quickly grabbed the attackers but the crowd was in a frenzy.  Subtitles show the crowd yelling things like "If you'd done as we demanded, none of this would have happened!"

Think about the implications of that for a minute.  "If you just stopped letting women drive," or "If you just stopped letting women show their face and hair or ankles," or "If you just stopped allowing bars and restaurants to stop selling alcohol or pork," or "If you would just get rid of all your dogs (Muzz consider dogs unclean) none of this would have happened."



Sadly, Sweden is a lost cause--the country's politicians are firmly wedded to the notion of letting any Muzz into the country who wants to come--sort of like our emperor and his advisors.  The Swedish pols then make Muzz immigration irresistable by offering the immigrants free housing and generous cash allowances.

But at least Swedish pols are following their own laws, while emperor Obama has done them one better, ordering his government to let illegal immigrants stay here and receive cash payments even though the law forbids it.  But don't worry, citizen:  The problems in Sweden and Denmark and France and Germany and Belgium can't possibly happen here, because Obama!

He assured you Islam was "the religion of peace," and that "The future must not belong to those who insult the prophet of Islam."  And of course he's never lied to you before, right?

AP uncritically echoes government scientist's claim that drilling causes earthquakes

Yesterday the Associated Press--an outfit firmly in the "progressive"/liberal/Democrat camp--published an article--by someone billed as a "Science Writer"--under the headline:
"Study: Oklahoma's daily small quakes raise risk of big ones"
The article quoted a "federal study" by geophysicist William Ellsworth of the U.S. Geological Survey.  Here's a quote from a USGS article on his "study:"
USGS scientists are dedicated to gaining a better understanding of the geological conditions and industrial practices associated with induced earthquakes, and to determining how seismic risk can be managed.
That, folks, is pure propaganda:  The phrase incorporates the pre-ordained conclusion that "industrial practices" cause earthquakes.

Of course they don't say "causes" earthquakes because that would be a red flag to non-progressive, non-government scientists.  The phrase "associated with" is non-controversial.  But of course laymen see the same phrase as "causes."  Which of course is the intent. 

Of course you don't believe this, but you can read the AP article at the link and see the writer happily characterize a presentation by Ellsworth as a "session on human-induced earthquakes."  This was and is the intent.

The purpose of this propaganda blitz is to generate public support for the federal government being able to ban both hydraulic fracturing and wastewater disposal.  This would kill about two-thirds of new exploration activity.  Here's the AP summary:
One risk-management approach highlighted in Ellsworth’s article involves the setting of seismic activity thresholds for safe operation. Under this “traffic-light” system, if seismic activity exceeds preset thresholds, reductions in injection would be made. If seismicity continues or escalates, operations could be suspended.
Makes sense, right?  I mean, everyone is horrified by the notion that drilling operations can cause earthquakes, so giving the feds the right to ban those things is a slam-dunk, right?


But consider a few facts that Ellsworth--a PhD geophysicist--must know:  Virtually all these micro-quakes occur at a depth of 4 miles or so.  But wastewater disposal wells are typically less than 8,000 feet deep.  It's like claiming two airliners that fly within two miles of each other is a dangerous "near-miss."

If earthquakes happened before drilling, how can Ellsworth be sure the small quakes in *some* oil-producing states are caused by drilling?  He can't, of course. 


Basically Ellsworth is using "post-hoc" reasoning:  Before X years ago there were only Y small quakes per year.  But after the eeebil oil companies started fracking (or disposing of saltwater), that increased a bunch.  Ergo, disposal wells are "associated with" (read: causing) the quakes.

(At the very end of the USGS article by Ellsworth from Jan 17th, 2014 that seems to have been basis the AP story, a caption to a photo notes that "very few wastewater disposal wells produce earthquakes."  You won't be shocked to learn that the AP "science writer" didn't see fit to include this very-bottom-of-article disclaimer in his story.)

If this all has a vaguely familiar ring, you're right:  This is exactly the reasoning that "progressives" and anti-capitalists/anti-Americans used to whip up "anthropogenic catastrophic global warming"--the theory that man-made carbon dioxide was fatally warming the planet.  Of course this theory conveniently ignored the fact that the climate has been much warmer in the past, before the industrial age and the automobile--which means there must be some sort of non-human factor that could account for the warming.


So how can the anti-capitalists be certain that this time the problem is man-made CO2?




They can't, of course.  But only by claiming the cause is man-made CO2 can they force the result they seek.  Which is to kill carbon-based energy.


As the public is slowly beginning to realize what a scam AGW is, the progs are opening a second front.  If they can't kill capitalism one way, ban the very techniques that have temporarily given us cheaper gasoline and oil.

Business as usual, progressive style. 

February 14, 2015

5 million new Dem voters at the stroke of a pen!

A couple of years ago Obama issued an executive order that allowed illegal immigrants who had been brought to the U.S. by their illegal parents when they were under 16 years old or so to stay in the U.S. forever.

Of course Obama's order carefully avoided saying "forever," but the regulations issued by his administration said "indefinitely."  If you can find a distinction between those two terms, let me know.

Realists immediately predicted that this was just the start--that Obama would quickly follow up by issueing more executive orders expanding the program to allow parents and relatives of the illegal "children" to come to the U.S.--again,"indefinitely."

Sure enough, the emperor's regime is now executing plans for a new order from the emperor, called "Deferred Action for Parents of Americans."  This imperial order allows parents of "U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents" to stay in the U.S. for up to three years.  (Was originally two years but when the emperor realized he wouldn't be impeached for that, he upped it to three years.  Yay, unilateral action!)

Now let me explain how the game works:  Illegals who came to the U.S. and dropped an "anchor baby" will now qualify to stay in the U.S.

"Wait," you say, "The order only allows them to stay for three years!  So that's not, you know, permanent!  So shut up you dumb hater!"

Ah, I see you haven't been in the country very long.  Or you're 15 years old.  Or a Democrat.  Because if you think Obama and the Dems will reverse course and deport ANY of these wonderful Democrat voters at the end of three years, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you.  I don't know of a single government program that has EVER been reversed three years later.

You've already heard the wailing and screaming from those pushing for unlimited immigration saying "You just can't separate families!!!" even though the family put themselves in a bind by entering the U.S. illegally in the first place.  Plus, who's breaking up a family?  There's nothing to stop illegal parents from taking their kids home with 'em.  But of course that would eliminate the tear-jerking, tragic aspect of the proposed action.  Can't have that!

But we're just getting started.  Next step is when Obama issues an order giveing the illegal kids who've been given amnesty under "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" "legal permanent resident" status.  After all, since they can already stay "indefinitely," that's merely a formality--an "insignificant distinction."  At least that's how it'll be phrased by Team Obama.

And that, of course, will vastly expand the number of illegals who qualify for the "Deferred Action for Parents of Americans" program.

Think this is just a scare story?  Consider that DHS has already leased a massive office building in Crystal City, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from Washington, where a thousand federal workers and a thousand more contractors will process applications.  DHS predicts as many as 1.3 million people may apply in the first six months alone.

Sweet, huh?  By a stroke of his imperial pen, Obama will have added something like 5 million new Democrat voters to the rolls. 

And every one of 'em will be eligible for thousands of dollars in payments--cunningly mis-named as "Earned Income Tax Credits" (but are actually cash payments)--just for bringing their kids to the U.S. illegally.  Brilliant!

But don't worry, citizen--those payments won't cost taxpayers a dime.  The emperor just directs the treasury to print whatever money is needed.  That's the way it's always been.

And you can believe us.  Really.  After all, has the emperor ever lied to you before?  His administration is certainly the "most transparent in history," right?  And he was ever so good about investigating that trivial little non-issue about the IRS investigating some subversive right-wing organizations who were trying to apply for tax-exempt status.  In fact you've forgotten all about that, because it was much ado about nothing, right?  No one even remembers who Lois Lerner was, right?

And he fulfilled his promise to withdraw all American forces from Iraq, right?  Right?  Ya gotta admit he sure did that.  Ended that long Rethuglican war.  Of course things are still a bit unsettled over there, and we might be sending troops back in again.  But don't worry--he's ordered 'em not to shoot back if they're shot at.  Besides, ISIS is just a JV team, so...no worries!

And look how well Obamacare is working now!  Critics of the emperor said you'd end up paying more for health insurance, and that companies that offered health insurance would cancel it.  And that the law would force churches to violate their beliefs by forcing them to offer "morning-after pills" to employees.  But none of that turned out to be...more than a minor inconvenience.

I mean, we just had a federal judge issue an opinion that forcing churches to do that didn't constitute a "significant burden" on their religious freedom.  So there ya go, citizen!

Besides, people who complain about the emperor's policies just do that because they hate him, because he's a person of color. 

Another brilliant negotiating tactic from the emperor

I've posted several pieces on how the ghastly, narcissistic, Muslim-loving, America-hating, anti-Christian emperor has been frantically scrambling to get "a deal" with Iran--no matter how awful for the U.S. and the west.  The basic offer from Obama is to give them everything they want--removal of the few economic sanctions he hasn't already unilaterally lifted--in exchange for an illusory, unverifiable promise from the rag-heads not to develop nuclear weapons.

Boy, that's some really shrewd negotiating skills, eh?  That Obama fellow really knows how to negotiate!

Horse shit, of course.  He just wants a deal so he can point to himself and crow--loudly--"Look, I got the Iranians to actually promise they won't build the bomb!  No one else could have managed this, and now we'll have peace.  Because I did it.  And as has been made clear many times, I'm the smartest president in history!"

"See, there's their signature, right on that line there!  So, no one has to worry any more!  Yay me!"

And the Lying Media will swoon and fellate him yet again.  And the Iranians will wait until a few months into the next administration before revealing that they have the Bomb.  At which point no one will remember that the emperor promised that this wouldn't happen--because of his superlative negotiating skills.

To that end, according to Reuters and AFP, last October Barky sweetened the offer even more:  He sent a secret letter to Iran's "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, offering to help Iran fight ISIS.

But wait--hasn't Obama has repeatedly assured us that ISIS is "a JV team" that does NOT directly threaten the U.S.  So why offer to help Iran fight an enemy that Iran has a huge vested in fighting for its own purposes?

Oh, that's right:  To enable Barky to make a deal.

A far cannier strategy would have been to wait and watch as ISIS gets closer to Iran, and watch the mullahs start to sweat.  ISIS pressuring the mullahs would do a world of good.  We shouldn't intervene to prevent that from happening.

February 10, 2015

Some president said America is the largest country on earth??

What American president said this:
We're the largest, most powerful country on earth.
Libs just know it must have been George Bush, right?  Cuz, you know, our honest, unbiased media (yes that's major sarcasm) said he was dumb and all.

Actually the speaker was America's first emperor, Barack Obama, in an interview yesterday with a goofy liberal webzine called Vox.

Remember the sneering, condemning reaction of the American media when v.p. Dan Quayle supposedly didn't know the proper spelling of "potato"?  (He was acting as a judge on a quiz show and was reading from a cue card that gave the spelling as "potatoe.")  The media went nuts for days.

But see if the press publishes a single critical word about the emperor's gaffe.  See if it gets a single second of air time on the evening news.  Hell, the emperor could shoot someone on live television and the press would ignore it.

Back when a Repub was VP, reading a cue card that incorrectly showed the spelling of a word was a HUGE deal to the Lying Media.  Today the emperor says America is the largest country on earth and the press doesn't bat an eye.

Wonder what changed?

February 09, 2015

More evidence that human-caused global warming is a deliberate hoax

For some years now I've posted evidence that the claim that humans are warming the planet by dangerous amounts--by burning fossil fuels and raising millions of head of cattle for meat--is horseshit.  Now more evidence has come to light.

To understand this you need to know that NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss), the U.S. government's Global Historical Climate Network and other U.S. and U.K gummint agencies have faked the temperature record for decades.

Of course they have a plausible-sounding term for faking:  they call it "adjustments" to the temperature record.

You may well wonder why the real, honest, measured temperature at any location would need any "adjustments."  After all, isn't the measured value the actual, y'know, record?

Glad you asked.  About a decade ago a bunch of other folks--mostly statistics and computer experts--asked the same question. 

NASA and the gubmint replied "It's all done by computers.  You wouldn't understand."

The questioners said, in essence "You'd be surprised how much we know about computers and statistical methods.  So stop dodging and answer the fucking question."

Rather than agree to show their data, NASA and the governments of the U.S. and U.K. (which was doing exactly the same thing) now claimed that the skeptics weren't legally entitled to see the original data, nor the alleged computer algorithm used to make the mysterious, never-explained, all-important "adjustments."

The skeptics responded with a volley of FOIA suits saying, in essence, "As you arrogant, lying assholes are well aware, you gathered and massaged this data using taxpayer funds, so you don't own it.  The people do.  So quit dodging and show us the data and the algorithm."

Several judges agreed, and ordered their governments to release the original data.  Whereupon a stunning thing happened:  Just days before the deadline to turn over the data, the main research agency at the U.K. had one of those mysterious computer glitches and...well you'll never believe this but ALL the original temperature data was mysteriously erased.

Even more stunning, the government agency claimed no one had ever thought to make a back-up copy of this vital, irreplaceable data. 

If this strikes you as utter horseshit, congratulations. 

The reason the temperature data is essentially irreplaceable is because poor countries didn't bother putting decades-old records of stuff like local temperatures on computer.  So the U.S. and UK governments bought all the paper records they could find and put 'em on computer. 

And then destroyed the original records.

But some of the original records remained in the home countries.  And a humble blogger, Paul Homewood, did the unthinkable:  He checked records in one of those countries against NASA's "adjusted" numbers.

And would you believe...all the adjustments were UP.  Yeah, shocker.

Another example of how these never-explained “adjustments” have been used to further the hoax was exposed in 2007 by statistician Steve McIntyre, in a paper published in 1987 by James Hansen, an arrogant bastard who ran GISS for many years.  Hansen’s original data showed temperatures in the Arctic as having been much higher around 1940 than at any time since.  But GISS quietly adjusted these older temperatures downward, so that those of the past 20 years are now higher instead of lower.

It's really stunning.  Astonishing.  Brazen. 

Makes you wonder what else they've been lying about.

February 08, 2015

Academic asks why America has so many people in prison; can't possibly be due to crime rate, right?

A totally leftist website--a waste of electrons--has a piece by an academic titled "Why are so many "Americans in prison--a provocative new theory."  And while I hate to give loony left-wing sites links, you really need to read it to see how utterly bereft of reason those folks are.

The academic notes that the number of people in prison is up about five-fold since 1960, but the crime rate is only four times higher over the same period.  This of course must be a plot, and surely a scandal:  How can the number of prisoners have increased more than the crime rate??

Of course a big chunk of the increase in the prison population is simply due to the fact that the U.S. population is about 70 percent higher than 1960--but obviously that leaves a lot of the increase unexplained.

The academic acknowledges that state legislatures have passed mandatory sentences for some crimes, but then notes that the length of sentences actually served hasn't changed.  He notes that there's more drug crime now than in 1960, but the percentage of prisoners doing time for drug crimes is only about 20 percent--not enough to account for the gap.

Eventually he claims the main cause is that local DA's are charging a higher percentage of accused than in the past.  He claims this is due to a higher desire by DA's to be re-elected, or a desire to run for higher office.

I suggest DA's are taking a lot of cases to trial that they couldn't in 1960 because of the growing availability of DNA evidence.  I suggest a second factor is that public disgust with skyrocketing crime has increased pressure to put criminals in prison.  Together I think these two can easily account for the five-to-four ratio of inmates to crimes.

The real sticking point is why crime is up four-fold since 1960 when population is only up 70 percent.  One commenter offered this:
I have a friend who has recently started his career in criminal law, and he has a lot to say about the people he defends in court.  He frequently says how shockingly unperceptive and clueless his clients are, and how surprised they are--again and again and again--that  they get caught.
He hates to use the word "dumb" but admits that a lot of them really are--there is just no sugar-coating it.
Other commenters jumped on this, claiming the average IQ of the whole population couldn't have changed enough to matter.  But I think they're missing a huge change in the urban demographic:

Fifty years ago, before the catastrophic destruction of a huge percentage of low-functioning families, dumb people got enough parental input--including a lot of moral teaching imparted by churches--to avoid committing *serious* crime.  But now that's all gone, replaced by the ethos of "I want it, so I'm gonna take it."

Someone else noted that the figures for drug crime don't include burglaries and robberies committed to get money to buy drugs.  So we may be seriously underestimating the social cost of drugs.

Hmm....

Emperor's advisors going nuts after congress invites Israeli PM to speak without asking emperor's permission

It's been a standing joke among political bloggers for a decade or so that the U.S. has two political parties:  The Stupid Party and the Destroy America Party.  For those new to the game the Stupid Party is the Republicans, always out-maneuvered by the canny, cunning Dems and their media allies.

But sometimes even incompetents can get lucky.  And maybe...just maybe...the Stupid Party got lucky, in Boehner inviting Israel's prime minister to address both houses of congress, without asking the emperor for permission first.

Word is that Team Obama is absolutely furious about what it sees as an insult to the emperor's power, in inviting a foreign head of state to address congress.  This has triggered two responses from the White Hut so far: it asked members of the congressional black caucus to boycott the speech, and several have agreed not to attend.  And Team Obozo directed VP Biden not to attend.  Cuz the veep normally has a seat right behind the speaker's podium, and if Biden was there it would invite people to compare that with the emperor's absence.

So why should this be of interest?  After all, Netanyahu could say anything he needed to say by penning an op-ed in the WSJ.

My take is that Obama views this as a huge personal insult.  Now, almost all of us have to cope with personal affronts several times a week, so we don't see this as any big deal.  But for his whole life Obama has gotten his way, so it's likely he sees this as a far greater irritant than the rest of us would.

Example:  How many editors of the Law Review didn't manage to publish a single article?  With any other candidate that would have raised a big flag, but in this case everyone just smiled.

No one remembers him at Columbia.  With any other candidate...

The reason he didn't release his original, long-form birth certificate wasn't just to generate controversy.  Instead there was something about it that he didn't want you to know.  (The betting is that he was born with a different name and that the change to Barack Obama was never official.)  With such high stakes--the presidency--most people wouldn't even have imagined trying to bluff the thing through.  But with massive help from the media and the Democrat party he was able to get this massive defect to vanish.

Keeping your college records sealed would have sunk any other candidate.  But with massive help from the media and the Dems, this too vanished.

His passport records should have shown travel to Pakistan at a time when that was prohibited to Americans.  Those records mysteriously vanished.

A Selective Service registration card, filled out with Obama's name and provided by the Selective Service itself under a FOIA request, is an obvious forgery.  And everyone just smiled.

The guy has always gotten away with everything.  He's never been called to account for a single failure or fraud or discrepancy--and he knows it.  Long before now--decades ago--he almost certainly decided--with no small amount of justification--that he was The Chosen One.

Now, for the first time, he's been dissed.  In a very public way.  And not by some nobody-blogger, but by the guy who's constitutionally next in line after the vice-president if something goes down.

This has to have made the emperor absolutely furious.  Like, way more than most of us can imagine.

And unless he can put enough pressure on Boehner to get the speaker to cancel the invitation, it's gonna get worse when Netanyahu actually arrives in the U.S.  Cuz either the prime minister will come and go without saying boo to Obama--what an insult!--or Team Obama will invite him to meet the emperor, which will underscore Boehner's jab at the emperor in inviting a foreign head of state without asking permission first.

This dilemma (lose either way) must be giving Team Obama absolute fits!

The best solution for the emperor would be to invite the prime minister to the White Hut before he addresses congress.  In that event Team Obama could steal the spotlight to a great extent, releasing pics of the two sitting together in the WH.  Americans would be expected to infer that the emperor and the prime minister have a fine, close relationship, when nothing could be further from the truth.  But great damage control.

Of course the nightmare for Team Obama would be if Bibi declined the invitation.  OMG!  Ultimate dis!  But Netanyahu surely wouldn't do that because the Dem media would rip him to shreds and he needs America's support.  Still, a fun thought.

Most people not in the Democrat camp have concluded that the Repubs won't stop Obama from doing anything he wants, no matter how blatantly unconstitutional.  Reason is they're all scared to be called raaacists.  So basically the country was at Obama's mercy:  If he wanted to declare amnesty, or have the government take over the internet, or seize your retirement account, or take over the health care system, or give billions in tax refunds (EITC) to illegals, or anything...no one would stop him.

But finally there's a ray of hope:

Ever heard of a "preference cascade"?  It's when a few people decide the Fabulous Thing they've been backing for years is really a sham--a joke, a farce, a fraud.  Then when they talk to others about their realization and decision, a few in that audience who have come to the same conclusions but haven't jumped ship decide to join the switch.  Then they start talking, and the same thing happens to others.

The loss of support for the previous Fabulous Thing happens slowly at first, but then momentum builds.  Once it starts, vast numbers of "regular" folks who had a vague feeling something was amiss about the Fabulous Thing realize it's now okay to say so publicly.  And then to join the switch away from supporting the previously unquestionable Fabulous Thing.

Because of the very public, impossible-to-conceal nature of the innocuous invitation by the otherwise inept Boehner to the PM of Israel to address congress, the Lying Media can't totally suppress this story.  Netanyahu's acceptance may well be the first time in Obama's life that anyone has bucked his wishes.  There's just a chance this may start the preference cascade.

UPDATE:  Here's the Washington Post just 40 minutes ago:
When John Boehner announced that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had accepted his invitation to address Congress, the Obama Administration reacted strongly. The criticism was not directed primarily at Boehner, who apparently did not inform the White House of the invitation, and may have acted unconstitutionally in delivering it, but against Netanyahu, for breaching diplomatic protocol by accepting the invitation without first notifying the White House.

For example, AP reported that White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest “says typical protocol is that a country’s leader would contact the White House before planning to visit the United States. But Earnest says they didn’t hear about Boehner’s invitation until Wednesday morning, shortly before the speaker announced it publicly.”

Even friends of Israel, like the Post’s Richard Cohen, were appalled.   Cohen excoriated  Netanyahu for accepting the Boehner’s invitation “without informing the White House,” a sign of Netanyahu’s “impetuousness and contempt” for President Obama.

And that’s the way the story played out in the media, here and in Israel, until the New York Times appended the following correction a few days ago to a January 30 story on the controversy:  “An earlier version of this article misstated when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel accepted Speaker John A. Boehner’s invitation to address Congress. He accepted after the administration had been informed of the invitation, not before.”

This correction has circulated in conservative and pro-Israel circles but doesn’t seem to have led to any followup or any investigations by those who initially reported the opposite. [Italics are mine]  If the correction is correct, then we have a situation in which the administration was so grossly incompetent that it was circulating false information about Netanyahu from multiple spokespeople, or that it intentionally sought to undermine Netanyahu by lying about his alleged “breach of protocol.” It’s also possible that the administration strongly objected when it was told of the invitation, but Netanyahu accepted anyway, but there has been no indication from the White House that this is the case.
Wow.  If this is any indication, Netanyahu's visit--and the implied snub of the emperor--will be tough for the rest of the lying media to ignore.

February 07, 2015

Muzz blow up oldest church in Iraq; emperor tells us not to get on our high horse about it

According to Rudaw, an Iraqi news agency, security sources from the Ninevah police district said that stone-age cretins from Islamic State blew up the Church of the Immaculate Virgin—one of the largest and oldest Chaldean churches in the ancient section of Mosul.

Wait...how can that be?  Because the emperor has absolutely, totally assured all of us that Islam is "the religion of peace" and all that.  Is this something a "religion of peace" would do?

Yeah, I didn't think so either.

Oh! oh! oh! wait!  I got it!  The explanation--crafted by the finest minds on the emperor's team--is marvelous in its guile: it's that members of "Islamic State" aren't really Muslims! 

Yes, you heard that right, citizen.  They aren't Muslims.  They just appropriated the name of that mahvelous, female-oppressing, clitoris-removing, music-banning, dog-hating, bullshitty but oh-so-peaceful religion...but dey not real Muslims.  Cuz see, citizen...they don't really know what the fuck they are!  The only guy who does know what they are is the emperor!


Now, if you wanna see a war-lovin' "religion," why that would be...Christianism.  At least according to the emperor.

Now, you prolly don't think that's true, but that cause you white!  So you can't see how nasty Christians are!  See, just a few years ago Christians went down to where the peaceful Muslims were and started a big ol' war!  See?  

Okay, some history dude says that was maybe thousan years ago, but that doesn't change the point.  The emperor says Christianism is just as bad as Islamic State.  He even added that if you don't think so it's because you're "up on your high horse" about it.

Seriously, that's what he said--at the national prayer breakfast:  We shouldn't get upset about ISIS burning people alive and stoning women to death because a thousand years ago Europeans mounted the crusades.  Frankly that strikes me as way over the top.

Of course I'm kind of touchy that way.

Brian Williams: How long has he been lying to ya?


February 03, 2015

Obama's chief of staff dodges simple questions

I really have a problem with people who dodge legitimate questions.  Especially *officials* who dodge.  Yes, I know they're not under any legal obligation to answer, but a crappy, transparent dodge suggests they think we're all idiots--which really pisses me off.

It's like "We don't have to answer no steenkeen questions, cuz we're royalty.

So here's Chris Wallace interviewing the emperor's chief of staff, Denis McDonough.
WALLACE: Let’s turn to domestic issues. Does President Obama realize that he lost the midterm election?
Consider that question: "Does the emperor realize his policies and his party got clobbered last November?" Simple, right?. Now check the White Hut guy's shitty dodge:
Emperor's chief of staff:  What the president realizes and he laid this out in the speech last night is that over the course of now decades, middle class families in this country have faced unrelenting pressure as costs go up with while wages stagnate. What the president laid out in the speech Tuesday night is a plan to say, ‘Hey, let’s put the middle class first in the country first, close loopholes, invest in them, things like child care, job training, community college,’ and make sure that they can get the kind of opportunities that we all had when we were growing up in the middle class family, Chris.
WALLACE: Forgive me. During the campaign the president said that his agenda was — the midterms were in effect going to be a referendum on his agenda… And yet, despite the fact that Republicans gained nine seats and took control of the Senate, gained 13 seats in the House, the president didn’t acknowledge the fact that Republicans won the midterms and didn’t basically scale back any of his agenda to reach out to Republicans.

Emperor's chief of staff: Here is what we’ve done since the mid-terms. We’ve normalized relations with Cuba, after policy for 50 years had been failing…

WALLACE: Respectfully, you’re not answering my question.

Emperor's chief of staff: We laid out a plan for the middle class on Tuesday night. In the meantime the Republicans have debated a single infrastructure project for three weeks. They’ve debated among themselves about how to address women’s health issues. Just going back to the first set of issues, as I look at it, I don’t see a pathway to getting the DHS appropriations bill — which funds things like counter-terrorism, our aviation security– I don’t see a path to how they get that done. I hope they’ll lay that out for us this week. We’re ready to work them on all these things, Chris. We have to get things like the DHS appropriations bill done.

WALLACE: The president famously said to Eric Canter in 2009, elections have consequences, I won. Well guess what, in November the Republicans won. What are the consequences? Doesn’t the president need to scale back his agenda to find areas of agreement with the Republicans who won the mid-term?

Emperor's chief of staff: The president laid out a lot of places in the speech as well where we can work with the Republicans; precision medicine, you saw that in the newspaper today, things like trade, things like infrastructure, things like research and development which have traditionally been nonpartisan issues. We’re ready to work on those. Here is where the president will not trim back his agenda, Chris; he is not going to say that we should trim back our agenda working for middle class families in this country.
Okay, here's what Wallace should have said:
W: Do you really think the American people believe that amnesty for illegals will help middle-class Americans?  Jon Gruber was caught on video saying Democrats were able to pass Obamacare in large part because Americans are stupid.  Does the president think Americans are stupid?  Do you think Americans are stupid?

Emperor's chief of staff:  Um...the president has an agenda to help middle-class families, and he refuses to scale that back...

W: Hey asshole, it's obvious you're consistently refusing to answer that easy question.  Do you think we're too dumb to notice that? 

COS: Well actually...

W: Can you tell us the Constitutional theory that allows the president to ignore laws passed by congress?

COS:  Well, actually, the Republicans have been obstructing the president's agenda for...

W: That's bullshit.  Harry Reid refused to allow over 50 bills passed by the House to be voted on by the Democrat-controlled senate.

COS:  Well of course the president has no control over what Democrat members of congress do.  It's not his fault that congress can't get anything done.  The president has warned congress that if it passes certain specific bills he'll be forced--forced--to veto them because he told Republicans not to do those things.  If congress refuses to obey the president, you can't blame the president when he does what he said he'd do.  He's being steadfast.  The man is just soooo smart!

W:  Are all you people on drugs or something?

COS:  Wow, look at the time!  I've got to get back to the White House to attend a very important meeting with the emp...with the president.  See ya later!

February 01, 2015

Inevitable

War between the two camps--Muzzie vs. free world--is inevitable.  It's certain because neither our political elite nor the jihadists (backed by a majority of Muslims world-wide) will change their goals.

Of course at this point virtually no one in the West even realizes there is a war.  We're only fighting in a token way, just enough to preserve the emperor's dwindling credibility.  But there's at least a small chance that when the threat becomes personal and mortal for average Americans, a chunk of the West's citizens may junk this stupid, politically-correct bullshit in favor of survival.

Frankly I don't think enough Americans will be willing to fight.  And if we don't, no one else will. But it's gonna be fascinating to watch it unfold.

How do crappy regimes manage to stay in power for decades?

Conservatives have a widely-held belief that any economic or political system built on lies and bad principles--socialism, communism, progressivism and similar--must eventually fail economically.  They then conclude that the failed regime will be overthrown or voted out and a better system will take over.

Unfortunately history seems to show that this doesn't happen.  For example, the former Soviet Union failed economically, yet Putin's Russia is still totally committed to communism.  Castro's Cuba is a disaster--the government has set a standard wage of $20 a WEEK--but no one has overthrown the regime, nor are there any indications that this might happen.

North Korea has been starving its citizens for decades, while top party officials drink top-shelf scotch and ride in limos, but no one is seeing revolution.

I think I've figured out why bad regimes stay in power even though logic says the people should shoot the bastards and hang their corpses by their feet:  It's a combination of propaganda, government control of education and short memories.

People only "know"--or think they know--things from one of three sources:  For about 90 percent of all people it's either personal experience, or something they read or heard.  A small percentage of people start from religious or philosophical principles and deduce things they "know" must follow, but this is rare.

Problem is, unless you keep a diary it's really hard to remember political or economic events that happened more than a couple of years ago.  Thus Democrats who signed a letter claiming Saddam Hussein was developing WMDs could brazenly, hypocritically do an about-face three years later and claim they never believed that, and that anyone who did was a moron.  And unless you had a copy of the letter, who would know the truth?

This of course is just one of countless examples of politicians lying their ass off, knowing that virtually no one can prove it.

If memory is too short and cluttered to be much help, one could hope the huge cadre of state-paid, state-controlled teachers could teach "real" history and keep the truth alive.  Unfortunately most state teachers are unionized, and their view of history is thoroughly biased against democracy, free markets, individual freedom and basically every founding American value.  I always ask my college students questions about history--and they know virtually nothing.  And these are bright kids, many headed for med-school.

The last channel for what we "know" is things we read or hear.  That's essentially what the media decides to publish or broadcast.  There's also a small component of hearsay from other laymen.  Of course in a totalitarian state the media says only what the leader wants.  It lies like a rug to advance whatever story the leader wants to push.  In countries like Cuba, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the like, there is no independent media.

The same is true here in the U.S:  The media uniformly advance the liberal/Democrat/"progressive" agenda.  One of the most powerful tools the media has is the power to ignore stories, and to avoid asking Democrats tough or embarrassing questions.

The takeaway from all this is that without an independent media or honest teachers, almost no one has any idea what the hell happened more than a couple of months ago.  This in turn allows politicians to lie brazenly.   We're talking lies on the scale of "Man has never walked on the moon," or "The USSR and East Germany were *forced* to build the Berlin Wall to keep thousands of spies from West Germany from infiltrating the East."

Or "If Cuba has had problems it's all because of the U.S. blockade, now 50 years old, has prevented the Cuban people from trading with the rest of the world."

Or "Capitalism exploits the poor."  Or "You didn't build that."  Or "If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.  Period." 

Or "Anyone who makes it into the U.S. should be given citizenship."

Or "I never knew Mr. Gruber.  I'm sure he didn't really say 'The bill passed because the American people are stupid.'  That doesn't seem like something anyone would actually say."

Or "The only people who criticize the president are racists."

Or "Laws that force people to show photo ID to vote are racist, and the only people who want such laws are racist Republicans trying to suppress the black vote."

Or "We need to re-distribute wealth from the rich to the 99 percent."

Or "We need to ensure that all races are represented in all professions in proportion to their percentage of the population.  After all, that's simple fairness."

You've heard all these before, from Democrats.   And yet if by some wild chance they should ever be questioned in front of a camera, they'll usually deny saying anything of the sort.

And thanks to the Lying Media, they get away with it.

Team Obama seems to believe words trump reality

Richard Fernandez notes that Communist China, ISIS, Putin and numerous dictators of smaller countries, like Fidel Castro and that wacko ruler of North Korea, have found a fundamental weakness or vulnerability in Western politicians--and they're exploiting it.

Seems Western elites have adopted a kind of religion:  That words and treaties and press releases trump reality.

Does that sound insane?  Unbelievable?  Yes, but look at the record:  The emperor has raised brazen lying to an art-form.  He and his lackeys get away with it because they know no reporter has the balls to call them on it.

So the emperor declares that Yemen is an example of one of their foreign-policy successes.  Promptly a month later that government is overthrown by Iranian backed Houthi rebels.  Most rational people would think that would be a stunning defeat for Obama’s claimed foreign-policy "success."

Not at all, citizen!  Instead it's spun as a canny "strategic shift."

You probably think I'm just making that up--because it's too unbelievable to be true.  Well, here's a link to The Wall Street Journal headline: “In Strategic Shift, U.S. Draws Closer to Yemeni Rebels.”

Team Obama--from top to bottom--believes words trump reality.  And in fairness, since they've discovered they can lie *brazenly* and stay in office, there's some twisted logic there.  But as bad as that is, it's not the worst effect.  Far more devastating is that by believing words trump reality, they uncritically believe that agreements or promises or treaties by other nations or national leaders will actually bind those nations.  That is, the Others will do what they say they'll do.

Aw, isn't that cute?  One pictures the 6th-grade bully telling his victim "Give me your lunch money and I won't bother you again."  And of course that works out so well, right?

Look how eagerly Obama allowed supposed "deadlines" to pass on achieving an "agreement" with Iran regarding that nation's nuclear weapons program.  "Deadline" passes, and Obama extends it.  Second "deadline" passes, Obama extends it again.  You'd think most rational people would view those acts as evidence of a foolish overeagerness to get something--anything--signed so Obie can have a piece of paper to wave (shades of Neville Chamberlain) so he can proclaim yet another "foreign-policy success."

Does anyone think for a moment that the Iranians haven't figured that out?

Any agreement--no matter how terrible--is enough to send Washington elites into a frenzy of celebration at the brilliance of the smartest president ever.  (Yes, that's sarc.)


Another example of Obama and Democrats' bedrock belief that word trump reality is Obama's refusal to call Islamic terrorism Islamic terrorism.  There's always some other explanation:  a lone wolf, or mere "workplace violence," or a totally understandable reaction to a cartoon or a video or someone not handling a koran correctly, or...you get it.  Even after the Nigerian Islamic terror group Boko Haram--clearly not responding to any of the above--murders thousands in repeated attacks on unarmed Christian villagers in Nigeria, Obama still can't bring himself to call it Islamic terrorism.

Instead the White Hut releases a posed pic of Moochelle holding a piece of paper with a hashtag printed on it.

That'll fix things.  You bet.

Want another example?  "We never negotiate with terrorists."  That's State spokeswoman Jen Psaki.  Oh?  Then how do they describe Obama personally ordering the release of five senior Taliban commanders in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl?  Wait, I know:  In Obama-speak, even the Taliban aren't "terrorists."

Words trump reality, eh?  A demented, juvenile concept.  A superstition, in fact--little different from primitives believing that chanting the right words will heal a sick person.

Charming.

But not a good basis for national policies.